How to remove viruses, malware and ransomware from a free Mac

Although Macs are quite safe compared to other systems, they are not always free from damage and can get “scares” such as viruses, malware, ransomware or phishing. In addition, it is good that you have this article at hand because unfortunately there are more and more. If not, remember the KeRanger case. In this tutorial, we will show you what each of these things are and how to suppress them if we have one.

Malware What is it?

They are the typical viruses that contaminate your system. They are mainly downloaded from websites that can be perfectly original. The problem is that they have been intervened by other people, to move to a fake website that usually tells you to download a program to scan for viruses or infections, which is false and all it does is infect your Mac . To all this you have to add that it is likely that you have requested your Apple ID and password, to steal the data from it. Also, you will probably find many problems that are really false, and will ask for your credit card information to solve them. With time and attacks, there are four programs that you should never download, since they will take care of this: MacDefender, MacProtector, MacSecurity and some media also indicate that MacKeeper.

How to remove malware for free

This is important. You should not pay for malware to be removed from your Mac. If you are not 100% sure of what you are doing, do not pay for a service that in a website advertisement indicates that your Mac has a virus or things like that. If you have important things, they may call you on the phone to ask for a ransom or something similar. It is better that you hang up, because if you pay for it, the problem may not be solved.

You really do not need to pay for an antivirus to solve the problems. There are free crowd that can do it for free, or if necessary, to yourself. If you think you are in a malicious website, you should do the following:

1. If you have the web browser open, close it . It is possible that you are not allowed or allowed. In this case, look in the dock for the icon, and press control while clicking. Next, select force output.
2. Quickly open Finder and go to the downloads folder . If you do not have anything important there, select everything and drag it to the trash. If you have something important, try to find suspicious files to delete them.
3. Now do not forget to empty the bin , to avoid problems.

This is if we run into problems when navigating. Now let’s see how to do this if we have screwed up and installed something that we should not:

1. If you have the application open, take advantage and memorize the name of this one. It will be useful.
2. Similarly, if you have it open, close it .
3. Press Command + Shift + U on the keyboard.
4. Open the activity monitor .
5. Select all processes.
6. Now look for the name of the application you saw in step 1. If you do not have the name, try searching for MacDefender, MacSecurity or MacProtector.
7. Remove the process with the ‘Exit’ button on the left.
8. Close the activity monitor.
9. Now, go to the applications folder. You should see one with an encrypted name or with the name of the process that you have deleted. Drag it to the trash can .
10. Do not forget to empty the trash afterwards.

In addition to all this, Apple also offers its own malware removal guide, which you can consult here if you want more information.

Ransomware What is it?

It is a variation of the malware, by which your files are encrypted and you can not use them “until you pay or perform any similar action”. It is supposed that they can only affect Windows, until KeRanger appeared less than a year ago . As he is the only one we know and who exists to date, we can only provide a solution for him.

How to remove this free ransomware

• To check if you are infected, check if the General.rtf file exists in the path /Volumes/Transmission/Transmission.app/Contents/Resources/ or in Applications / Transmission.app / Contents / Resources.
• If so, you are infected. Use the activity monitor to find and exit the kernel_service process . Also, check if you are using / Users // Library / kernel_service and force the output of this.
• It is also advisable to check if the kernel_pid, .kernel_time, .kernel_complete or kernel_service files exist in the path ~ / Library directory. If so, you must eliminate them.

If the files have been encrypted

If you have encrypted the files, you have two options. If you have backup or do not mind losing your files, format your Mac . If the files matter to you, you can pay for it, but we do not guarantee anything, we do not recommend it and we are not responsible for what might happen.

Emails phising What are they?

On occasion you may receive an email requesting you to download a file, probably malware, or to pay for a service. Also, keep in mind that you should not trust your trusted people in this aspect, given that they may be infected and not be the ones who have actually sent the message. Similarly, macOS has a filter to prevent these attacks. If you follow these tips, you should not be infected in this way.

How to prevent these attacks

Here we are going to give you a series of preventions to avoid being attacked in general, either by malware or by ransomware or email:

• Make sure your Mac and all its applications are up to date . To do this, you can go to the App Store and select Updates.
• Enable automatic updates from the App Store settings.
• Install only software from the Mac App Store or from trusted developers .